Unbreakable
by TsubameTrebleClef
Summary: Trisha Elric is slipping away from life, from warmth and happiness, from everything she knows and loves. How will her boys manage, burdened with this knowledge? Do they have every bit of the strength that everyone takes for granted?


**A/N: This is just something that popped into my head, so it'll be just two chapters long. The title and idea are derived from _Unbreakable _by Nana Mizuki.  
**

**Disclaimer: Hiromu Arakawa owns **_**Fullmetal Alchemist**_**. If I did, it would be a major failure.**

* * *

Chapter One: Shattering

Trisha Elric let her head sink back into the pillows. Her neck ached from tedious hours of gazing out the window and her head ached from too much of the sunlight that streamed copiously into her little room; sunlight that she had welcomed each morning just weeks ago – but now it always seemed too bright for her watering eyes. And everything else ached for various unknown reasons. Her life was seeping out of her with every painful breath, like water trickling out of wet hair when it is squeezed. The wax in her candle was melting, slowly, slowly – ever so slowly. And atop her candle, the light that had burnt so bravely for more than twenty five years was flickering, weakening, going out.

"Oh, what shall I do?" she sighed, directing her question at the old woman sitting beside her bed, but not tearing her longing gaze from the panorama of green fields and twisting lanes outside. Resembool. This was her home. This was the town where she had grown up and married and raised her children. This was the place where she was to die and be buried. "I have seemingly said what must be said, planned what must be planned and passed on what must be passed on, but something worries me still."

Pinako Rockbell took off her glasses and began rubbing them clean on her apron. "Are you afraid of dying?" she asked.

Trisha turned to her and smiled sadly – the sort of smile that made someone feel calming reassurance and great sorrow at the same time. "No, I don't suppose I am. It is a strange thing, death. It seems destined for the weak and hopeless."

"Don't say that, Trisha!" Pinako burst out, leaping up from her seat. She stood there for a moment, looking strangely impressive despite the fact that she was half the height of the chair. Then she slowly sat down again and pushed her glasses up to the bridge of her nose. "What are you worried about, then? The boys?"

Trisha allowed her eyes to travel from the fence post to two boys whose gold hair shone bright in the sunshine. The younger boy was furiously chasing the older one around in circles. "Yes, that must be it. I know you'll take good care of them, but I'm afraid I'm putting them through too much. Their father left, and now I'll be going. All they'll have is each other."

Pinako stood on her chair in order to watch the children grapple with a teddy bear. They rolled over and over and over, out the open gate and into the lane, where they were obscured by a cloud of brown dust. "But that's enough for them, I daresay," she said. "It'll be traumatizing for all of us, but those boys are as close as two brothers can be. Together, they're unbreakable."

Trisha smiled, comforted by these words. "I know. But a mother is allowed to worry about her children, isn't she?"

* * *

Outside in the dusty lane, Edward Elric broke free of his brother's grip on his arm and the teddy bear. He tried to catch his breath but was rewarded with a mouthful of thick, swirling dust. He spat it out and scrubbed at his grimy, sweaty face with the bottom of his shirt.

"Brother, don't show your belly in public," said Alphonse. "It's bad manners."

Edward stopped scrubbing for a moment to stare at his brother in disbelief. "In public?" He looked up and down the empty lane. "There's no one here!"

Right on cue, as if mocking him, an incredibly ugly bulldog bolted into view and within seconds had thundered past the two boys, growling menacingly and dribbling a path of saliva in its wake. Edward and Alphonse gawped after it, blinking uncomprehendingly. Finally dropping the bottom of his shirt, Edward said, "Why doesn't Mrs Bulldog-Maniac down the lane ever keep that thing chained up?"

"Because it's never bitten anyone, I guess," said Alphonse. "It's nuts, anyway. Not like other bulldogs." Then he gave a yell of protest. "Brother, look what you did to my teddy bear!"

Edward whipped around, feeling a pang of remorse. He and Alphonse had had an argument about very trivial matters, which had resulted in him grabbing Alphonse's favourite toy and dashing away with it. Now the teddy bear was utterly unrecognizable. Tufts of soft brown fur had been yanked out, leaving ugly bare patches behind, and half the stuffing was hanging out like a large serving of candyfloss. One eye was left dangling by a thread. "I'll fix it for you, okay?" said Edward quickly, as Alphonse looked as though he was about to burst into tears.

"More like you'll get Winry to fix it," said Alphonse, but he smiled all the same. They both laughed then, relieved that the fight was over and that they were once again on friendly terms. Edward tipped his head back, letting all the tightness in his chest evaporate into the warm, pleasant air, and in doing so happened to glance up at the house, where his mother was sitting by the window. His grin faltered.

Even from such a distance, she was still very beautiful – with soft chestnut hair that was tied loosely and draped over one shoulder, and sea-green eyes from which an air of kindness and understanding emanated – but nowadays she barely got out of bed and Granny Pinako hardly left her bedside. It was the mystery illness, the whole town said – the illness that had appeared out of nowhere and was sweeping swiftly across Resembool. Although Granny Pinako always said she was going to be fine, Edward knew his mother was slowly drifting away from him, and he could do nothing but watch helplessly as the tide rose and dragged her out to sea.

Just then his mother turned, and, seeing him looking up at her, smiled as if to assure him that everything was all right. But Edward knew that everything was most definitely not all right, and would never be unless his mother got better. He tried to smile back up at her, but the corners of his mouth just didn't have the strength to turn up, and there was a heaviness in his chest that he could not identify, being as young as he was. All he knew was that the tears lodged in the back of his throat were threatening to choke him, and that they would start gushing out of his eyes if he wasn't careful.

"Brother?" said Alphonse, sounding a little anxious. "What's wrong?"

With a huge effort, Edward tore his eyes away from his mother's fragile form and dropped his head, so that if the tears were to make an untimely appearance, Alphonse would not see them. "Nothing," he managed to get out, before his throat became too constricted and any attempt at speaking was impossible. Then he looked sideways at his brother, through the gaps in his bangs. Could Alphonse sense that a great tragedy was bearing down upon them? Or was he too young?

* * *

That night, with no one to see or hear him, Edward let his sorrows spill out and run down his cheeks in big, salty droplets. The effort it had taken to hold everything in had sapped his energy – now he lay cocooned in a nest of blankets, his body shaking with huge, racking sobs. He yearned for his mother's protective arms and wanted badly to climb into bed with her, but that would surely make her worse; he yearned for Alphonse's company, but knew he ought not to wake him. Through the long, dark night, Edward felt completely and utterly alone, trapped in strange and unsettling dreams.

And come morning, he felt more vulnerable than ever before – as though something as puny as a blade of grass could shatter him into a thousand tiny pieces.


End file.
